


The Wolf and the Swallow

by sondering_on



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Geralt learning to face his feelings and how to Dad, Geralt of Rivia has feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Moments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24695179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sondering_on/pseuds/sondering_on
Summary: If anywhere promised shelter for a Witcher learning how to accept his destiny and his newly-found ward, it was Kaer Mohren, so Geralt gathers up Ciri and turns Roach to the east. It's a long road from the outskirts of Brokilon Forest to the castle, though, and there are plenty moments of learning to be had along the way.**Some post-current canon scenes with Geralt and Ciri because the slow build to them finding each other was really Too Much™.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 9
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

He smells her before he sees her, and isn’t that an odd thing? To be standing there in the woods in broad daylight and smell the dust of a city street where children play, the hearth-fire scent of her room in the castle, the faintest trace of her mother’s nervous sweat from the ball all those years ago—to feel the call of so many moments before he’s even seen her face, and still know it was her?

No, it’s even odder when the woozy pull of scent memory makes him turn around just in time to face her, and there it is. There’s Pavetta’s child, unknowingly wearing her mother’s expression to the mark. Then the pinch between her brows melts away as she reaches into his raised arms—when did he raise his arms toward her?

No, it’s the actual scent of her that blows him back, but she rocks with the movement, stronger than he thought, the small bird. She mustn’t have had a bath since her city burned, but the way she leans into him and holds fast pushes it all aside. Of course, she wouldn’t make herself vulnerable like that—not while it took this long to reach him while he ran; from his responsibility to her, from the onslaught of feelings it gave him—from destiny.

He tightens his grip on her for a moment. She needn’t fear, now. He will put his swords through anyone who would dare touch her. He’d very much like to do the same to anyone who’s touched her since she fled Cintra, but that’s a matter for another time. He runs a hand over her hair, nearly as pale as his own, and swears by whatever gods there are that he will fulfill his promise now. He will not run again.

Then, she leans back and asks, “Who is Yennefer?” and he rocks back a step for another reason entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

They take the still extended invitation of the merchant and his family to rest and recover within their home. The wife is sad to learn that it will be only a temporary stay for them both, but at this point, Geralt is willing to ignore her feelings in favor of moving Ciri on as soon as possible.

He feels a spike of worry for a moment when the merchant’s wife insists on certain spoils for the girl since the stay will be so short—honeyed mead with dinner, a hot bath drawn with the help of her scowling boy; suddenly there are risks in everything—but he forces himself to concede that after all she’s been through, Ciri deserves this. He just also resolves to defuse any potential dangers that might befall her, which includes sipping from the flagon before she’s allowed the rest and standing guard while the tub is filled in the family’s small washroom.

Ciri stands with him while he waits, explicitly disallowed from helping the wife and the boy by the woman herself. The girl wrings her hands, and he wonders for a moment, in the gentle quiet between them, if he perhaps seems overbearing to her. He hopes he does not, but he also hopes she understands—that she can feel the same cable-strength of the hairline thread that ties them now, that she knows how he—

“You didn’t answer my question earlier,” she says when the mother and son have finished their work.

He glances down and sidelong at her, knowing and not wanting to all at the same time. A soft sigh curls in the back of his throat.

“You should, at some point,” she says, seemingly untroubled by his silence. “After all, it was _her_ name I heard you calling when—”

“You don’t want the water to get cold,” he says, reaching down to nudge her gently.

She narrows her eyes at him, but there’s no heat in it—a searching something, and maybe a bit of amusement. She lingers a moment, but he doesn’t break, and when she sees that now is not the time, she steps into the washroom and closes the door behind her. He takes his position in front of it, the solace of the pommel of his sword under his hand, and waits.


	3. Chapter 3

Geralt is already saddling up Roach at first light when the merchant’s wife walks out the door with Ciri. He pauses to watch as the woman sets a bundle in her hands before squeezing Ciri’s shoulders softly. Even in profile, he knows the look of the wife’s gaze—memorizing, with a pinch of sorrow. Ciri smiles up at her, hugging the bundle close to her chest, and then turns to walk away.

He pulls the last buckle into place as Ciri steps within a few paces and suddenly realizes that she’ll have to ride with him on the saddle. Looking up, he sees that Roach has craned her head around to glance at the girl, and he briefly thinks, ‘Guess we’ll see how this goes.’

“Some food for the road. She said it should last us a couple of days,” Ciri says, holding out the bundle. Geralt takes it from her hands with a small hum and catches a faint whiff of freshly baked bread as he tucks it into one of Roach’s saddlebags.

He’s about to swing up into his seat when he catches Ciri still gazing at Roach, and the mare gazing back, standing at the same distance.

“You have ridden before, yes?” he asks.

“Yes, of course,” she says, eyes still on the horse.

He glances between them and then watches with something akin to fascination as Ciri walks closer, as if drawn. Her steps are silent upon the grass, and Roach does nothing more than flick an ear as the girl approaches. When Ciri is close enough, she holds out her hand flat and waits until Roach bumps her nose into her palm, chuffing softly. It’s a wonderful scene—these girls he’s taken to, together.

Then, Roach lifts her chin to close behind Ciri’s shoulder and tucks back enough to nearly toss the small girl against her chest. Ciri lets out a startled huff, like the breath almost going out of her, but it blooms into a peal of laughter as the girl throws her arms as far as they can reach around the mare’s neck. Startled, himself, Geralt gives Roach a good-natured thump on the side and suffers the defensive neigh he receives in turn.


	4. Chapter 4

Geralt can only thank the gods that they’re camped on a back road in the mountains when a scream pierces the night—the scream of a child in fear, in pain. His eyes fly open when the ground shakes, and though the pressure in his eardrums is building dangerously, he can’t help but wonder if Ciri will ever stop reminding him of her mother.

Hands and knees digging into the dirt, teeth gritted, Geralt claws his way around the edge of the smoldering campfire to the bedroll where Ciri lies. In the span of a breath she takes to refill her lungs, he manages to grab her shoulder and jostle her gently enough to rouse her from the nightmare. The next wail, perched on the tip of her tongue, falters in a breath that shakes her chest rather than the mountainside. Her eyes flash open in a panic, catch his, and Geralt worries for a moment that he’s only scaring her more—he knows what he looks like in the night, some dark creature with a haphazard halo and eyes that glow like a wolf’s—but then her face crumples and she turns to tuck into his arm and all he can do is fall back on his ass and pull her close.

Sitting there under the stars, the echo of her sharp cry still sounding in the valley below, Geralt has to remind himself that for all the capability and potential he sees in Ciri, she is still a child. A child who has lost everything. He settles his free hand across the span of her back while she cries into his sleeve, hunches his shoulder over slightly to protect her from the winds. Roach knickers nearby, and he thanks the gods again for constants in the middle of chaos.

When her tears finally subside, Ciri leans back and wipes at her face, sniffling softly. Geralt lifts her chin with the curve of a finger.

“Talk to me,” he says.

“It’s not important,” she says, something shuttering behind her eyes.

“If I can talk to my horse about things, important or not, then you can talk to me,” he says, firm this time.

Ciri glances at the embers in the firepit, but doesn’t lean out of his embrace when she says,

“I’m never going to see my grandmother again. I can never go home.”

“Why wouldn’t that be important?”

“Because they are things I cannot change.”

She delivers this fact with such solemn frankness, it sends a hollow pang through Geralt’s chest. He cannot stand to see that the only light in her eyes is a reflection of the dying embers before her.

“I think Cintra might rise again,” he says with a shrug.

She looks up at him sharply, that pinch between her brows again, and asks,

“Why? Why would you believe that?”

He tucks his finger under her chin again, even though her eyes are already on his, and says, “Because you are a lion of Cintra, and I have heard you roar.”

Where he expects to find pride, he sees something a tad too dour to be called sheepish.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know where it comes from… or why I can do that, but I know it hurts people. I don’t… I didn’t want to hurt you—”

“None of that, now,” he says, his hand settling on her shoulder again, a reassurance rather than a disturbance this time. “At your parents’ betrothal ball, your mother unleashed such power. It comes from within, a ‘gift,’ so Calanthe called it, drawn from her own bloodline. It isn’t like any magic I’ve seen before, I will tell you that, but that does not mean it is cruel by nature. Truth be said, I’m glad you have it.”

“You want me to use it, then? You want me to hurt monsters, or people, or—”

“No, Ciri. I want you to protect yourself, and I am glad because I know that you can. I could teach you more, if you’d like, but to know you have this power of your own is a great comfort—and that, in itself, is a rarity these days.”

She leans into him then, her relief as palpable as his own, and with a spark of his fingers, he sets the fire pit back to light, content to let them sit in the glow until Ciri can finally nod back off to sleep.


End file.
